Posts Tagged ‘home insurance’
Written by admin on 03 September 2010
There once was a time when flipping a house was no big deal. You simply bought the second property, took a few months to redo the cosmetic damage and create the home of someone’s dreams, put it on the market for way more than you paid for it and more than you paid to fix it up, and then it sold. No muss, no fuss and, for some property flippers, no need for homeowners insurance.
But times have changed and real estate in the U.S. is not selling as it once did. While the home buying credits were in full force in early 2010, the real estate market picked up a bit, but now we are back to our normal lows. Not only that, but property values have fallen as well so you can no longer sell properties for as much money as you once could.
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Tags: home insurance, properties
Posted in Finance & Insurance | 4 Comments »
Written by admin on 16 July 2010
What happens when the gulf oil comes ashore?
There is a sad fact of life when it comes to dealing with insurance companies. You should read all the small print before you buy a policy and, if you are surprised at how the insurer decides to interpret the policy when you make a claim, you must be ready with an attorney. Telling it as it is: insurance companies like to make a profit. If they have to pay out too many big claims, their profit starts getting small. That gives them an incentive to keep finding new ways to avoid paying out. When Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, home owners discovered their policies covered storm damage, but limited or excluded claims arising from flooding. The cause of much of the damage was a storm surge where the wind drove the water to higher than usual levels. The issue for the courts was whether the resulting damage was covered as storm damage or excluded as flood damage. The practical reality was that, for the people whose homes were damaged, the precise cause and effect mattered little. They had lost their homes. For the insurance companies, the courts were deciding claims worth billions of dollars. Needless to say, the courts at state and federal levels gave often wildly different interpretations and produced very different results. That is what happens when vast numbers of people line up to sue multiple defendants. Some win. Some lose.
One of the more interesting outcomes of the litigation was the decision of some insurance companies to stop selling policies in the Gulf states. They gave as their reason the increasingly uncertain legal environment. The companies that still write home insurance coverage now have different language. Policyholders hope the law will be on their side. The attorneys acting the the insurance industry remain confident they now have their clients protected.
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Tags: cover, home insurance
Posted in Finance & Insurance | 4 Comments »
Written by admin on 20 June 2010
How can you tell that you really need home insurance? Well, if you’re not planning any illegal things like insurance scam (which is definitely not a good idea, especially these days), it will be really hard to predict any situation when you will actually need some insurance coverage for protecting your house. Until, of course something bad happens and you will need the money to pay for the damage. However, there’s a range of circumstances that make an insurance policy for your house a really welcome if not necessary addition to your paperwork portfolio.
The following are the most typical events that will make having home insurance a necessity unless you have a lot of money and can rebuild your home from scratch without worrying about finances.
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Tags: home insurance
Posted in Finance & Insurance | 1 Comment »
Written by admin on 13 June 2010
You can request almost anything you want and get it right when you want it. We live in the world of possibilities. This world allows us to choose and take advantage of what is out there for us. If you are willing to pay the full price, you will so that; if you search for the ways to economize – you will find it without a doubt. The most important thing is to concentrate on your ideas and don’t let them slip away easily without giving you a good expected result.
If you care about the place you call home and you know for sure you need to insure it, there is nothing else you have to get but insurance. If you don’t feel like you can afford to pay the required sum, don’t get upset too early – you can find a reasonable price. The reasons for discounts offered by insurance company can be various. They can range from the type of building materials used to build your house to the number of kilometers from your house to the closest fire station.
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Tags: home insurance, investment, money
Posted in Finance & Insurance | 1 Comment »
Written by admin on 31 May 2010
As with every group of businesses, there’s an association for the insurance industry. It’s called the Insurance Information Institute. When individual insurers fear adverse publicity, the III usually gets the job of making general announcements. That way, the news comes out with less damage to the member companies. So, for example, when there was flooding because of the melting snow and then the torrential rains, it was left to the III to warn people that the majority of policies do not cover damage caused when sewers back up. That’s not the most reassuring of news. Making equally bad reading was a report that premium rates for property insurance were likely to rise by an average of 3% this year. This reflects both the aforementioned bad weather and the rise in the costs of repairs. You might not have noticed it yet, but builders have been steadily increasing their charges. The price of gas has been rising, labor costs are up, replacement materials are more expensive – it’s all bad news even though there’s supposed to be a recession.
So why might you have a heart attack when your renewal notice hits the mailbox? Although the politicians may not have accepted the reality of climate change, the insurance industry is watching the statistics and reassessing weather risks state-by-state. There’s been tornadoes and major storms across the southern states. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cheap insurance, home insurance
Posted in Finance & Insurance | 1 Comment »
